I strive to make everything easy.

Some think this doesn't apply to them. For example, many who make sites and apps for complex process-monitoring or number-crunching will claim that easy isn't possible. True, those experiences will never as easy as the first level of Candy Crush. But they still need to be as easy as possible.

Your users are busy. Their time is probably costing you -- in opportunity or actual budget. You need them to get from Point A to Point B as easily as possible.

This apples to everyone:

Customers
Employees
Managers
Teams
Vendors
Third Parties

Is this about Usability Testing?

In most cases usability testing will help improve the ease of use of your experiences. But this isn’t just about the usability of your sites and systems. When I say everything needs to be as easy as possible, I mean everything.

All of your communications, regardless of audience or medium.
Your success metrics. How can you know how you’re doing if it's not clear what your numbers mean?
The very work done on your experiences. Wouldn't it be nice if your UX consultant communicated in language and work artifacts you can understand? And with clear relevance to your business? (Call this the “UX of UX.")

It's not easy being easy.

This may all be very obvious. But then why does it seem that easy experiences are not the norm?

Because easy is the tip of the iceberg. Easy does not come easily.

Easy can't be faked. It has to ring true for your users.
There are no shortcuts to easy. Every complexity of your business that's relevant to the user experience needs to be understood and synthesized, then designed into experiences that work for all of your audiences. Then measured in ways so you can tell if it's all working.
Easy is not where you start. Easy is where you finish. Getting there is not easy.

You have to be tough to embrace easy.

People can be suspicious of easy. They sometimes say, “I’m paying all of this money, and all you have for me a THIS?”
And the flip side is common in organizations that provide UX services: "The client is paying this money, and all you’re going to show her is THIS?”

So feel free to look under the hood. Scrutinize the analysis, the research, the synthesis, the distillation, the complete line of sight that starts with your business needs and results in an experience.

Easy is a Big Idea.

Big ideas are often expressed as single words. Words like Trust, Loyalty, Quality, Excellence, Innovation. No one underestimates their power.

I say: Add “easy” to that venerable list.